


Take Them Up

by shabnam_e_maghz



Series: Lay Them Down [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-09
Updated: 2011-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shabnam_e_maghz/pseuds/shabnam_e_maghz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to "Lay Them Down." Closure, and the fact that Arthur made Eames about exactly as miserable as Eames made him. (Well, for a given sense of "miserable.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Them Up

**Author's Note:**

> This story happened thanks in huge part to two wonderful people on LJ: one who proofread it all in a one-night grammatical coup that I am pretty sure counts as an actual triumph of the English language (the surviving run-ons are mine; the suspiciously well-composed sentences are probably her.) – and [Arlecchinic](http://arlecchinic.livejournal.com/), who held my hand through all the hair-rending and hand-wringing and told me that no, it wasn't all horrible, and yes, Eames really was going to say something sooner or later. <3 <3

He planned after that never to see Eames again for the rest of his life.

He didn’t mean it.

He should have felt humiliated, should have felt seen through again, should have felt unsafe, should have felt like getting a new totem. For one thing Eames’ head had angled down and he was thinking – before Ariadne finally burst in the door and neither of them could remember any more how long they’d spent in absolute silence, before she said something neither of them could remember or that Arthur could hear over the blood rushing in his ears – Eames had been thinking, before she burst in, he had been thinking “no,” and that was because he knew what Arthur was expecting, and Arthur could try to fool himself but he also knew what he’d been expecting, and Eames had an answer and the answer was “no” –

Arthur should have been feeling the way Eames always made him feel.

Instead Arthur remembered fingers on his thigh through his pants pocket; he remembered a hand untucking a pencil from behind his ear, remembered a smile broader than it was gleeful, and thought with helpless fervency that he’d like to see it again. That he’d rather like to see it now, actually – an immature, a juvenile line of thought for a single room and a hotel bed and a bare hand, but bugger all if Arthur cared about that now.

Somehow he was not surprised when, two weeks later, there was Eames in his life again. Nor was he surprised that, as if for good measure, this time it wasn’t even through a job.

*

Arthur hadn’t really kept in touch with the crew from school. He hadn’t really kept in touch with anyone, to be honest, and what with the mess of the severed family relationships back home, Arthur’s catalogue of nonprofessional acquaintances made for a very short list.

So when he got a call from Nick, he was tempted to avoid the reunion.

“Are you kidding, Arthur?” said Ariadne.

“This is why I don’t tell you about my private life,” Arthur said.

“Well, really, Arthur, who exactly _do_ you talk to when you’re not on the job?” Ariadne asked. “Cobb’s gone, however you knew him, and Mal’s been gone longer. You don’t like Eames, you don’t keep in touch with Yusuf, Diana doesn’t like you, Dmitri and Estefania are off on extended private missions, Amir’s as much of a hermit as you are –”

“I spend time with you,” Arthur offered. “And you berate me.”

“Well, not today,” said Ariadne. “Today I’m off with Eugenia and the girls, and you’re going to that reunion thingy with Whatshisface.”

“Nick.”

“Exactly,” she said, and headed off.

That was how Arthur found himself at a French bar, wondering whether it was worse that Ariadne was always right or that he always listened to her.

“I’ll tell you this, Arthur, I would never have guessed,” Nick was saying. “I thought Dom was the one who was going to snap you _out_ of cheating on all your p-sets. The way you’d go on and on about your schedule advisor and that thesis he was writing and how hard you were working helping with the research and how he’d change the world and his fiancée and how brilliant she was –”

“Well, I’d never have guessed that ten years from then you’d still never have thanked me for all those p-sets I filched for _you_. Life is full of disappointment, isn’t it.”

Nick’s smile was full of emotion and memories. “How do your coworkers put up with you, Arthur,” Nick asked, shaking his head.

“Arthur doesn’t have to play nice,” Leslie said. “He got all of us, didn’t he? And we forced him to dress up as Tigger for Halloween and to play the oboe for us when he didn’t want to. I bet his coworkers love him.”

“Actually,” said Arthur, “and I’m not sure I should tell you this, but compared to my coworkers, I’m the sane one.”

There was a moment of silence.

“You lie,” said Leslie at last. “You tell a horrible lie.”

“It’s true,” Arthur said. “Ariadne, my, uh, my boss, the other day she risked collapsing a five-layer dr – drug cartel’s building over a gamble that she could defuse a bomb in twenty seconds.” The extractor he’d followed before Ariadne had been another proof of this point, but Arthur had long ago discovered that he couldn’t talk about him anymore.

“Psssh,” said Nick. “In other words, you’re still the anal one and they take all the risks, huh? How’s that different from back in the day?”

I got to be the stiff with all the repressed issues and you balanced me out, not the other way around, Arthur didn’t say, and instead let Nick throw his arm around his shoulder and bellow something incomprehensible and loud and drunk.

It was at that moment he caught sight of the shoulders.

“Eames,” he said, before he could stop himself, and Eames turned around, eyes landing on Arthur’s almost instantly. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Reykjavík.”

“I was,” Eames answered, dumbly. “Uh. Hi, Arthur.”

The expression on Eames’ face – too unfocused for curiosity, not tense enough for disorientation – it was almost, Arthur was almost inclined to call it helpless, almost, even though that made no sense, until Nick ended the conundrum.

“Is that someone you know, then, Arthur?” he asked, and Arthur snapped out of it.

“Yes,” he said. “Another coworker, actually.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Eames said, not meeting Arthur’s eye. “I didn’t really – know that Arthur did things like. That he –”

“I know _exactly what you mean_ ,” said Leslie, smacking the back of Arthur’s head. “None of us believed it either, you see, and we were probably right, at least until we actually started dragging him along. See, Arthur, what were you gibbering about, _this_ is a normal person, compare and ask yourself, really, can you.”

Eames smiled, a pinched cheerful rueful, what the fuck, _rueful_ smile. “I like your friends, Arthur,” he said, and seemed to consider adding something but didn’t. “Nice to meet you all,” he added again, and as he was turning around to leave, Nick elbowed Arthur, and Arthur, crazy, stupid Arthur, God even knew anymore, Arthur called out after him:

“Hey, want to come join us?”

The way Eames looked at him then was almost the way he’d looked at him when Arthur tossed him the totem. Analyze that, he thought.

And Eames didn’t, or couldn’t, or guessed wrong. Anyway he said very little for the rest of the night, and when they took their leave and Arthur got into the taxi with Leslie and Nick and made some inane joke as they waved goodbye to Jimmy – Eames had that expression again. Eyes back on Arthur, and looking – looking, oh who even understood how Eames looked half the time anyway.

*

But then, for example. When Eames said, “And leave some room in that one, if you would,” and Arthur couldn’t tell if he was being made fun of, or – or what else it could possibly be, really.

Saito was their employer again, which was making them all a little more chipper than made any real sense. After all, none of them felt nostalgic for that nightmare inception assignment, though, fine, probably they all felt nostalgic for Saito.

They were all sick of warehouses and Ariadne said she wouldn’t mind them doing some of the legwork, at least, out in the open like normal people.

“Starbucks’ wifi traces,” Arthur said at once, to which Ariadne rolled her eyes and promised they won’t use the internet at any point, and that they wouldn’t discuss anything more sensitive-sounding than staircase formulation.

Eames drew short straw and ordered all the drinks – Ariadne’s hazelnut latte, Yusuf’s coffee, Saito’s dry cappuccino, Eames’ whatever-the-hell-Eames-got, and Arthur’s venti Americano, which. He didn’t understand how Eames knew to ask for room. Eames didn’t even bring any cream back with him, which was right, but how any human being could possibly _know_ that.

“You could say thank you, Arthur,” Eames said.

“Fuck off,” Arthur snapped, and Saito gave him a look – as did Ariadne – but Arthur settled for the somewhat legitimate excuse of not having had his coffee yet.

Or when, for example. Eames was picking up the files and when he got to Arthur’s, he straightened them out first, tapping the pile of paper on the table and patting its ends into order.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, and unofficially he also sort of meant for the coffee, but Eames, who was the one who seemed to keep _expecting_ thank-yous anyway, that great asshole Eames just froze and turned and stared, and didn’t say anything, and he kept _looking_ at Arthur, and Arthur wanted to kill him.

Or then, for example. When Eames brought along an mp3 player, and oh god of course Eames still had an mp3 player. And Arthur wasn’t even sure how that was mean-spirited of him, because Arthur didn’t knit and there was simply no way, but then Eames opened his eyes suddenly from bopping his head in silence, and smiled lightly at Arthur and it was as if he _knew_ , as if he knew exactly what it was Arthur was wondering and trying to figure out, and Arthur wanted to kill him again.

And in the warehouse, at night. Arthur had grown to hate and distrust any warehouse at night.

But there he was once anyway, this time because he had legitimately lost track of time and only realized it was past one A.M. when the lights went out.

And there was Eames – of course, _of course, of course_ – strolling in and saying, “I got the passcode, by the way, if you don’t want to sleep over here.”

And then saying: “And – God, Arthur, just, before you, will it help if I say Ariadne told me to make sure you didn’t freeze to death out here. Please don’t get mad.” – which was the point at which Arthur didn’t even know what to say anymore.

Except: “Well, as for sleeping here, I wasn’t planning on it, but I might as well now.” He sighed, taking his pen out of his mouth. “I guess you came all this way for nothing, then.”

And. For example. When he added:

“Unless you were also planning a sleepover.”

Eames said: “Well, I also wasn’t planning on it, but,” and Arthur assumed Eames meant to drift off and leave the sentence unfinished, but even he couldn’t be sure whether Eames meant to stare quite that long at him once he’d stopped talking.

*

Arthur was getting pretty used to that stare around the time they found themselves ambushed in a bedroom in Stuttgart.

“Well, so much for that internship tomorrow,” Eames had time to mutter, before they were surrounded.

Arthur had had to do a lot of research and pull a lot of strings to get Eames an in with their mark. One of the most obnoxious things about bust missions was that you wasted a lot of work – and a lot of accumulated personal investment.

“Police! Put your hands where we can see them,” one of the men announced, and Arthur saw Eames’ lips part in an aborted jaw-drop.

“Never mind, then,” he muttered lightly to Arthur, raising his hands.

Apparently some drug bust or other was taking place, which would have been fine except that Arthur’s briefcase had phial after phial of Somnacin in it. Which would also have been fine, especially since Eames could forge dreamshare licenses in his sleep, except that Arthur would really rather not have all that paperwork floating around a system the mark could access right when they needed him to think Eames was an intern who didn’t know what Somnacin was.

There was also the question of Hester, who was hiding under the bed in a fairly advanced state of undress, and who was really only there to give Arthur inside information on the mark, and Eames an opportunity to study how to forge her, but who for all Arthur knew could be carrying actual wads of illegal substances on her person. Well. Okay, but at any rate in her bloodstream.

And she had a vibrator on her bedstand.

Arthur could almost feel Eames’ eyes fly to the left at the same time his did. They were both thinking the same thing, and Eames was closer.

But he wasn’t reaching for it. Arthur saw his eyes steal to Arthur’s face, and there it was, that frozen, that searching, that helpless expression again.

It was a face Arthur was getting sick of, to be honest.

And so he reached out himself, around Eames’ back, grabbed the toy, and started beating Eames over the head with it, with as much fervor and authenticity as he could muster.

That part wasn’t hard.

“I thought you said you went clean!” he yelped, trying for as much outrage as he could. He felt, and he never thought there would be a moment in his life when he would say this, he felt incredibly grateful that Hester had already told Eames to strip to undershirt and boxers so she could better tell how his body movements looked, and that Hester had been rumpling Arthur’s clothes by way of demonstration. They pretty much looked the part of an interrupted couple right now. Getting in another whack, Arthur yelped, “I thought you said you weren’t going to do that anymore!”

“I didn’t, Bertie, I swear I haven’t smoked so much as a joint, there’s been a mistake –”

“Once a pothead, always a pothead!” Arthur yelled, voice cracking. “Why do I stay with you, I’ve been telling you, it’s me or the weed, Edwin –”

“Weed,” he heard one cop say to another in dismay.

And, as the house was clearly not a meth lab, and this was apparently the middle of a hefty chase operation, they actually got away without even a perfunctory search.

“Hallefuckinglujah,” Hester muttered, crawling out from under the bed. “I thought my heart was going to stop.”

“Mine nearly did,” said Eames. “Twice. Now then, Ms. Hester,” he added, clearing his throat, “let’s carry on and all that, shall we?”

*

Arthur hated that Eames visited the warehouse before heading off to the internship. He hated that Eames gave Ariadne bullet points before he left, hated that he said “Right, Yusuf called me the other night and said something about police card issues, I told him we’d look into it.” He hated that Eames dashed right off.

He hated that Eames was obviously doing his usual inscrutable asshole thing, while Arthur – Arthur was stuck remembering.

How Hester had said: “Eames, I’m not sure how you manage to look that much like a girl when you – don’t actually look anything like a girl, body-wise.”

“Well, I am a professional, darling,” he’d said, and she’d smiled shyly.

“Did you still want to try the hands-on practice, or d’you think it won’t be necessary?” she asked.

“What hands-on practice?” Arthur started to ask, before Hester laughed and said, “What did you think you were here for, Arthur?”

Remembering. How Hester had laid her hand on his shoulder, pausing to let Eames note the angle her elbow took, the limp jut of her wrist, the curve of her spine and alignment of her hips, before leaning back again.

“Go, Mr. Eames,” she said, and Arthur saw Eames visibly blanch.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to –” he began.

“Well what did you think he was here for?” she said, exasperatedly. “Really, _men_. Get over it, will you, mister professional, you’ll be groping a man soon enough and you’d better not be squeamish about it then.”

Remembering. Thinking, Hester may actually be the first person on the planet not to instantly realize Eames was gay. How ironic.

How the train of thought had died the instant Eames’ hand touched Arthur’s shoulder. How he had made the mistake of looking up. How their eyes had caught, how Eames looked miserable as Arthur had ever seen him, how he could see Eames’ chest moving with now-audible breaths, how Arthur’s own breath had hitched and every fiber of his being had tensed, how.

How Hester had immediately signaled stop, how she had said never mind, whatever, how about Eames practice on her if it was going to be that much of a problem.

“What do you mean, that much of a?” Arthur had asked, offended. “What do you mean by that? We can do this, I can” and he inhaled, because that sounded like a horrible idea and he didn’t think he could at all, but damn if he’d ever say die first, ever, “I can,” he repeated stubbornly, “if that’s what I’m here for –”

How she had said: “Look, it isn’t my job to eggshell around your hangups or whatever it is,” and settled, tea ceremony style, on the bedspread. “Life’s too short. Here, Mr. Eames, we’ll use the mirror for reference. Arthur, let him know if he’s doing it right.”

How he had done just that, how he had paid attention and commented, how Eames was doing it exactly right, how even though he was three times her size and looked nothing like a girl in that military cut, in the undershirt that made it clear there was nothing feminine about his figure, in the boxers that left his hairy, unfeminine legs perfectly unconcealed, how if you ignored the build and saw the lines – how he was already, in real space, how he was forging.

“You’ve got this in the bag,” Arthur had said, mutely.

And how they had wrapped things up, thanked Hester; how Eames told her he’d be escorting her back; how she had grabbed his arm because of course, of course they’d bonded, of course they were already friends by now.

How Arthur had left and frozen, after a few dozen paces, frozen in the street and couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop remembering Eames’ eyes looking at him, miserable but with pupils blown, gaze open and terrified and electrifying.

“ _Arthur_ ,” he heard suddenly, and snapped out of it.

“Are you going to be all right with a casino level,” Ariadne asked. “And, I can’t do this part obviously, but if I could turn around, so to speak, for a day or so and you could organize things so I don’t accidentally mess things up re: your totem there –”

“Ask Eames,” said Arthur flatly, and stood up. “He knows my totem, get him to do it.”

Ariadne was probably staring at him, but Arthur was getting awfully used to that.

*

“Somebody botched the kick,” Arthur said, incredulous.

“Well, kick syncing is practice makes,” Eames said, leaning back. “Ah well. Nothing’s militarized here, I can live with twenty-three hours hanging out on this level. We’ve got tequila.”

“Anyone who can’t fucking sync a two-layer dream kick is an idiot,” Arthur said, with feeling. “How hard can it be to sever two bungee cords on measure three beat six. How hard, _really_.”

“You don’t know what was going on up there,” Eames said. “Come on now. You’re never this brutal on anyone but yourself.”

“Well, Geoff’s got me stuck here with you for a day,” Arthur answered, before he could stop himself.

“Right,” said Eames. “And you hate me. Well, dreamscape’s pretty wide here, you know. I’ll give you berth, all that.”

Arthur closed his eyes. He closed his eyes, and squeezed tight, and scrunched his nose, and breathed, and.

Yes, he really, really wanted to spend a day on a beach drinking tequila with Eames.

The real Eames, even. Not hypothetical Eames who didn’t always stab Arthur in the brain with his oh-so-casual comments, who wasn’t an inscrutable asshole, who didn’t keep staring at Arthur with that miserable, helpless expression, who didn’t destroy Arthur’s sense of self and then grab a pencil out of his pants pocket and then know how he drank his coffee then act terrified to hand him keys, who didn’t do all this and then sit around acting as if it all fit into a homogenized person. Who didn’t look down after inscrutable silence and think, to the question Arthur didn’t even know he was asking, think: “no.”

“What’s happening in your head right now?” Arthur asked instead.

“What?”

“Your head.” Arthur sighed. “I’m sick of it. And it’s not like you don’t already know anyway that I can’t read you. Or you can read me like an open book so why not even the playing field a little, and give me a hint. What. Why are you so.” He gestured helplessly.

Eames’ eyebrows raised, and his lips pursed.

“I’d really rather not go there, if it’s all the same to you, Arthur,” he said.

He was in the process of leaning back into the lawn chair when Arthur said, sharply:

“Why.”

His eyes opened, they made contact with Arthur’s, and before Eames could resume his arrested downward slouch on the chair, something in the air between them clicked into place, Eames’ face slipped for a moment into an expression of actual panic, and Arthur said:

“Oh.”

And, because he was impossible, almost simultaneously, Eames said the same.

*

“So all along,” Arthur said slowly. “You were being that much of a … of a you, all because you are _that bad_ at losing?”

“No,” said Eames, with dignity. “Definitely not.” He paused. “At first, anyway.”

“Since when?”

“Since with the hang-gliders,” said Eames, mumbling, and Arthur stared.

“Then why,” he said. “With the totem, in, in your room, I didn’t even know that’s what I was asking _until you looked at me_ and were all ‘no,’ do you realize how humiliating that was –”

“When did I say no?”

“You implied it!”

“To _myself_. I was telling _myself_ that, because you hated me and there was no – how can you tell, what’s this bull about not reading me when obviously you can read my actual mi – hold on, hold on, that was you _asking_? Did you think that counted as _asking_?”  
“No! Of course not, nobody asks like that, that wasn’t –”

Arthur gave up.

“This is stupid,” he said, calming his voice down. “And inefficient.”

Eames’ face was very, very carefully blank.

Arthur considered leaning down, but really that would be a bit much considering how much hell Eames had put him through over the years, and so he stood up instead, crossed his arms, and settled his legs wide-stanced. Nothing about his posture wasn’t a challenge.

Eames made a small noise in the back of his throat, and then pursed his lips as if they were a drawstring that could pull the rest of him back together. Eames, Arthur remembered too late, was very petty about ceding a point.

And so he stood up languorously, and moved toward Arthur so slowly Arthur could have hit him for it. He leaned forward and tipped Arthur’s chin up, and then stopped moving, smiling, looking smug and chipper and perfectly content to stay there forever, and Arthur was not, was not going to give in and be the first to close the distance. It’s an eternal mercy that at the end of it, he didn’t remember anymore which of them had finally moved; he suspected they both did.

And the leaning through the final bits of air between them felt like inhaling static, were that possible, and nothing was resolved, and Eames kissed like he lived, knowing everything in advance and being competitive about it, and making the same incomprehensible pauses, those open vulnerable faces as if making sure Arthur still wanted this, which Arthur resented except apparently he had a thing for Eames’ vulnerable face.

“Hey,” Eames murmured into Arthur’s neck. “Stop thinking.”

“Oh my actual god,” Arthur said, a breathy part-laugh but he meant it. “Eames, would you _stop being right_ all the time.”

“For you, Arthur?” he said, eyes crinkling as he laid a kiss on his collarbone. “Never.”


End file.
